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Obama: Cliff deal 'just one step'

Fiscal cliff winners & losers

The staggering national debt — up about 60 percent from the $10 trillion Obama inherited when he took office in January 2009 — is the single biggest blemish on Obama’s record, even if the rapid descent into red began under President George W. Bush.

Obama has long emphasized Bush’s role in digging the immense hole. But he owns it now, and it’s a significant political liability as he girds for a fast-approaching brawl with the GOP over how to deal with converging deadlines of a new debt ceiling fight and the need to come up with $1 trillion in deficit reduction mandated by the so-called “sequester.”

“The numbers — at some point it’s got to catch up or else we’re all going to die,” said Chris Chocola, head of the anti-tax Club for Growth, which opposed the cliff deal. “We have serious problems that are going unaddressed and we’re moving in the wrong direction.”

Obama was able to splinter his deeply divided Republican opponents over the issue of tax cuts for the wealthy. But a similar fate might await the president and his Democratic allies if he brokers a deal with the GOP that requires massive spending and entitlement cuts.

During the cliff talks, Obama was purposely opaque about what cuts he’d ultimately accept, saying only that Republican resistance to a one-shot grand bargain meant he needed to make a deal in pieces — taxes first, spending second.

That tactic delayed but didn’t eliminate a looming day of reckoning on spending and entitlements that will come within 60 days thanks to the convergence of the debt ceiling deadline and the new deadline for keeping automatic cuts from kicking in.

“Republicans — and some Democrats — want to curtail Social Security, veterans benefits, Medicare and Medicaid — that’s not a secret — and some of us are going to be fighting to say no,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), author of a letter sent by 29 Senate Democrats in September demanding Obama back off chained CPI, which would reduce Social Security increases indexed to inflation.

“It is absolutely imperative the president and Democratic leadership stay strong on this issue. If they do, we will win,” added Sanders, who wants the president to aggressively push for tax hikes and loophole elimination on corporations.

Former Clinton administration official Alice Rivlin, a member of Obama’s defunct deficit commission, says Obama “understands the [deficit-reduction] issue” but “he’s got to deal with his own left wing, which is not enthusiastic about doing it. The real problem … is that Social Security has become kind of [a] no-no” to liberals.

In a video message to his 2012 campaign supporters released Wednesday, Obama offered few specifics on how he’d approach the coming fight. He reiterated his call for a “balanced” approach to deficit reduction despite a cliff deal that contains only a few billion in cuts and may add hundreds of billions to the debt in coming decades, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

It is not President Obama's "debt problem," as the headline suggests; it is our debt problem. If one wants to get technical, it is more a Republican debt problem since it was under Republican governance that our national debt grew most. And that was partly due to the Reagan belief and quote and later Bush/Cheney Republican motto: "Deficits don't matter." We have to change.

I trust President Obama far more than Republicans about seriously wanting to reduce and even eliminate our deficit and paying down our national debt. He has an ethic of governance and presidenttial legacy to spur and guide him; Republicans only want to destroy our social safety net and entitlements and further fatten the coffers of the rich (who fatten Republican campaign coffers).

But debt is not our biggest threat or problem; treasonous, anti-democratic, plutocratic Republicans are. (More on that later.) Also bigger is our job creation problem. Democrats and Republicans agree we will never solve our long-term debt problem if we don't grow our economy. So while we look for needed spending cuts, that should go hand in hand with looking for ways to stimulate economic growth and job creation. Spending cuts should go hand in hand with new taxes on the rich and privileged. Our democracy has long been crippled and corrupted by rich special interests and the politicians that write special laws and tax loopholes for those special interests. We must get rid of those parasitic leeches in our laws; they have drained our economy for far too long.

President Obama will force another deep split in the Republican Party in this next step of our step-by-step approach toward fiscal soundness. In tax reform, our next step, some enlightened Republicans will blaze a radically new Republican path by joining our president in aggressively seeking to rake back all the special carveouts and exemptions for the wealthy, those who should best embody the values of self-reliance, independence and personal responsibility for paying for their own businesses and lives.

Obama why have you increased the salaries of: Biden, politicians, federal workers when we do not have money? They make enough money; they do not need salary increases. Obama retract your executive order increasing those salaries. We, the American public, do not have money to increase your salaries.You politicians want to increase our taxes/debt ceiling to pay your salaries and benefits. Hey Obama, forget about raising taxes/debt ceiling. We have bills to pay and we cannot afford tax increases. At the end of each month, we do not have money left because we have to pay taxes and fees to the government and banks. And all will have to pay more taxes due to your beautiful heath care. The politicians want to increase our taxes to pay their salaries and the salaries of federal workers. So forget about tax increases/increase debt ceiling. You must cut federal spending, cut your salaries and benefits, cut the salaries and benefits of federal workers/contractors, do not give money (you do not have) to countries and illegal aliens. Do those things and you will not have to increase our taxes/debt ceiling each time you have budget problems.

"The staggering national debt — up about 60 percent from the $10 trillion Obama inherited when he took office in January 2009 — is the single biggest blemish on Obama’s record,"

Looks like even Politico is embarrassed about Obama. Why didn't the liberal media conglomerate and the Democrats bring up the huge debt problem months ago instead of trying to ignore it and hide it under the rug?

Obama has no debt problem. He doesn't care about the debt one bit. He thinks bigger government, and more spending and taxes is the answer. He does not care. Another President who cares nothing about the people's future or their children. We could have had that with romney or another Bush. Obama isn't specia in that regard.

It is not President Obama's "debt problem," as the headline suggests; it is our debt problem. If one wants to get technical, it is more a Republican debt problem since it was under Republican governance that our national debt grew most. And that was partly due to the Reagan belief and quote and later Bush/Cheney Republican motto: "Deficits don't matter." We have to change.

I trust President Obama far more than Republicans about seriously wanting to reduce and even eliminate our deficit and paying down our national debt. He has an ethic of governance and presidenttial legacy to spur and guide him; Republicans only want to destroy our social safety net and entitlements and further fatten the coffers of the rich (who fatten Republican campaign coffers).

But debt is not our biggest threat or problem; treasonous, anti-democratic, plutocratic Republicans are. (More on that later.) Also bigger is our job creation problem. Democrats and Republicans agree we will never solve our long-term debt problem if we don't grow our economy. So while we look for needed spending cuts, that should go hand in hand with looking for ways to stimulate economic growth and job creation. Spending cuts should go hand in hand with new taxes on the rich and privileged. Our democracy has long been crippled and corrupted by rich special interests and the politicians that write special laws and tax loopholes for those special interests. We must get rid of those parasitic leeches in our laws; they have drained our economy for far too long.

President Obama will force another deep split in the Republican Party in this next step of our step-by-step approach toward fiscal soundness. In tax reform, our next step, some enlightened Republicans will blaze a radically new Republican path by joining our president in aggressively seeking to rake back all the special carveouts and exemptions for the wealthy, those who should best embody the values of self-reliance, independence and personal responsibility for paying for their own businesses and lives.

Did you get this right from the White House website? Propoganda for dummies? it is so ridiculous that i can't believe you even posted it. And do you mind going back to liberal since you are no independent. You wouldn't want to be a liar would you? Oh maybe so after this post was a pack of lies. The GOP are bad but so are the Dems.

POLITICO spots the elephant in the room....FINALLY!! Welcome to reality.

There are about 16.4 trillion reasons why. The staggering national debt — up about 60 percent from the $10 trillion Obama inherited when he took office in January 2009 — is the single biggest blemish on Obama’s record, even if the rapid descent into red began under President George W. Bush.

It's more likely that Obama plans to use an ever-rising national debt to bring America to its knees. He doesn't believe in American exceptionalism, and doesn't think it is proper or "fair" that the US is a superpower, so he intends to knock it down a few notches. He will weaken us further and increase the national debt even more with amnesty for millions of illegal aliens and their government-dependent relatives that will be bussed in to enjoy the Obamacare and other perks of the giant socialist welfare system Obama is expanding..

In 2007 the economy tanked because people had borrows more than they could afford to buy houses. Liberals blamed Bush. In 2013 Obama will ask for 2 trillion, bringing his debt to about $8 trillion in 4 years. This is the exact problem from 2007, yet liberals refuse to blame Obama. America's bankruptcy is his.

Obama doesn't make promises, he just lies! He (and his socialist friends) are hell bent on bringing this country down to their economic socialist model, and they are well on there way! 25+ Trillion debt is on the way and taxing the way out of it won't work!